IKEA Celebrates 10 Years in New Haven With Giveaways this Weekend

It is an exciting time for the enormous blue box store in the Long Wharf area, visible from I-95, and it promises to be a sweet celebration for shoppers, too.

“IKEA New Haven is very thankful to New Haven and all of Connecticut for the support during the past decade,” says IKEA Local Marketing Specialist Elizabeth Dowd. “New Haven is such an amazing city to call home and we are thrilled to be a part of the landscape.”

The retailer has been able to mesh with the city, in part, by donating products to a number of area organizations including LEAP for Kids where IKEA made over a common room for the kids and staff to use. The company also build a kitchen at Common Grounds High School and New Haven Reads uses IKEA desks and bookshelves. The company is in the planning stages to build a teaching kitchen for City Seed, and is working to create relationships with other non-profits.

Taking a trip to Ikea is always a little like going to an amusement park—taking the elevator up to the showroom floor, wandering through the beautifully decorated departments, trying out the chairs and beds and essentially designing your life—but this weekend will offer a lot more for those who stop by.

In-store sweepstakes and deals will run from Friday, July 18, through Sunday, July 20. There will be one-day-only offers on select items, gift card giveaways and “as is” furniture will be an extra 25 percent off.

The store will be running a Twitter contest throughout the weekend. Take a photo of yourself holding an IKEA Swedish flag prop stick (left) and Tweet with the handle @IKEA_NewHaven and the hashtag #LoveIKEANHV for a chance to win a $500 gift card.

Those who stop by the Swedish Fish candy display can guess the amount of candy in the jars for a chance to win a $250 gift card plus the display and the fish.

On Saturday, five gift cards, one of which will be worth $1,000, will be given away.

There will be plenty for the family, too, including activities for the kids and free meals at the IKEA Bistro when you spend $100 on Saturday and Sunday. There will also be free frozen yogurt when you buy an entrée on Saturday.

“IKEA fans are a vast and passionate group that we appreciate but we have really enjoyed introducing the IKEA story to a whole new legion of fans that were not familiar with our store before we moved in ten years ago,” says Dowd.

The New Haven store hopes to introduce more people to IKEA this weekend. Shoppers can sign up for the IKEA FAMILY program, which offers monthly deals and perks.

“We are looking forward to sharing many more years of great design for homes and businesses for the many people in our community,” says Dowd.

"IKEA retailing started as an idea in the woods of southern Sweden more than 70 years ago," the main IKEA website explains. " What today
is the IKEA Concept has evolved during many years and is still improving."

In a 2013 report, Torbjörn Lööf, CEO Inter IKEA Systems B.V., wrote:

The first IKEA business was founded in 1943 and the IKEA Brand celebrated 70 years during 2013. Today more than 150,000 co-workers are working throughout the IKEA world. We saw more than 770 million visits to the IKEA stores and 1.2 billion visits to IKEA websites in the past year. Still we are just at the beginning. IKEA retailing is small in most markets and does not exist in others. People’s needs for good home furnishing products at low prices are bigger than ever and the IKEA Concept will continue to contribute to a better life at home for the many people.